In November, I wrote a poem about the weight of things. It was partially about vegetables and partially on the need to be explicit about the occupation of Palestine. My brain often easily connects concepts, but sometimes it may be useful to be more explicit in my thoughts:
The weight of fruit and veg
As a greengrocer, I endeavour to be explicit about reading out the price of something I deem expensive or atypical to ensure customers know the price of goods before getting to the final total. This is because in the UK we’re not used to buying fresh produce by weight. I classify this as a food literacy issue because buying produce by weight is key to being able to shop economically and to cut down on food and packaging waste. It’s also a food access issue, as people may be embarrassed or intimidated when purchasing and they may end up spending more than they had intended.
When I studied gastronomy in 2018, I became interested in how citizens may develop critical consciousness to gain a deeper understanding of the complexity of the food system. Researcher Sarah Goldstein suggests that engaging with the principles of Transformative Learning, with steps defined by Mezirow (2011) as “critical reflection, engaging in discourse, and taking action” may help to develop this critical consciousness.1 If I think of a small action I can take in my daily work life, for example something as simple as checking in with customers about the price of fruit and veg as they buy it, that can help nurture food literacy.
In parallel, engaging with and then volunteering with the Take One Action film festival was a transformative experience for me. Their screenings about food drew me in, but I left realising that a lot of my interest in food was really about people and society, and this deepened my understanding of food justice. During the festival events, there were always tools that allowed for feedback and reflection on the film, as well as a simple call to action.
The weight of things - bearing witness and taking action
Sometimes it's important to take action and be explicit about the weight of things when other people are silent either due to discomfort, misinformation, or fear. Life is messy and complex, but to me, some things are pretty damn clear: like the intended ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians by Israel. If it wasn’t clear to others in October, it certainly should be clear now.
It is both a weight and a privilege to have had previous knowledge and understanding of the conflict and occupation in Palestine, though my understanding of Zionism was lacking. Hindsight means I now reflect on a comment I made about Jewish Matchmakers for a piece I wrote for Feminist Food Journal. At the time of watching the programme, I was quite puzzled as to how many people were keen to date in, or move to Israel, but I didn’t question this. I’m not ashamed to admit that my knowledge can lack nuance or more detailed understanding, and this is why it's so important to continue to engage in discourse, to keep learning and to question things.2
Having watched someone I know document their experience living with family in Gaza during 2021 made me realise (at the time) people were not talking about, and the media was not covering Palestine in the way they should be:
19th May 2021
“Sunny with a chance of bombing. Life has to continue and the lawn and flowers need watered. In a bid to take our mind off the stresses surrounding us, we ventured to the garden for some sunshine and gardening therapy. Israeli war drones buzzing a constant and a sprinkle of rockets landing in the north and south of Gaza Strip. Blue skies across the board. Confirmed civilian casualties and a chance of many injured. Okay, okay, enough of the weather forecast play on words. Normalising this situation we are in is a blessing and a curse at the same time. The strength and resilience of Gazans always amazes and humbles me. At the same time, the need for them to normalise a terror situation occuring once every 4-5yrs saddens me to the core. Gazans or anyone for that matter should not live through times like these. Unfortunately, they do, and they need to keep watering the lawn hoping for better days ahead.”
23rd May 2021
“Me coming from an ever-green Edinburgh, it's a breath of fresh air seeing a dab of greenery in a canvas full of grey concrete. A robust and harsh concrete jungle that's swallowed many a breath of fresh airs.
And the swallowing up continues, especially in the past two days. Walking and driving around Gaza City all I see is grey destruction overwhelming people's minds and thoughts. 100m from this public park is a totally different canvas. One that resembles a warzone. Today, I wanted to focus on the dab of green...”
It shouldn't be necessary to have a personal connection to someone to be affected by the Israeli occupation or to take steps to gain a better understanding of the genocide, but I find the playfulness and gentle Edinburgh lilt of those two paragraphs a memorable contrast to the terror of the situation of living through airstrikes.3 These posts were a factor that sparked me to become one of those annoying daughters who, when having a conversation about the invasion of Ukraine with their father over pizza in 2022, prodded ‘But what about Palestine, no one's talking about Palestine?!’ It’s helped me to ensure that I try to keep prioritising Palestinian voices on Instagram, but I hadn’t thought we’d ever get to this stage…167 days (and counting) of bearing witness to genocide and the deliberate starvation of Palestinians.
I first wrote this paragraph mere hours after viewing an image that (for me) will be the one that sticks in my mind, possibly because of my profession, possibly because it came up in my feed uncensored and unexpectedly. At first sight, the image looked like spilled cans of chopped tomatoes on the ground. But it was in fact the spattered body of a child, a child with cable ties around their wrist. Bizarrely this scene reminded me of La Tomatina, the annual Valencian festival featuring a celebratory food fight with spoiled tomatoes. The nuances between ritual, celebration, and food waste of this custom are widely discussed, so I won't delve into it here. However, it is impossible to overlook the contrast between excess and scarcity, especially when one image triggers the reflection of another. It shouldn't be necessary to feel connected to an image, to be traumatised by the horrors of genocide, or for a particular trigger from one specific photo to have such resonance because of my profession. But it does. Bearing witness to these atrocities, despite feeling conflicted about the ethics and effects of shocking material, shouldn't remind myself to keep on taking action, but I do what I can in between restocking cans onto shelves.
As I update this paragraph, I hear of an incident in which a parachute failed on an aid drop, resulting in a pallet crashing to the ground, killing five people and injuring 10. Death as a result of being flattened by food feels particularly brutal given Israel’s attempts to colonise, flatten and homogenise the Palestinian food culture as well as the people. All of these thoughts make me realise that as a nation and a collection of people in different countries, if we're still not shocked enough to stop going to work, stop going to the shops, or going out on dates until this ends, what will it take?!
Bearing witness — watching from afar
For those who have uttered or overheard the easily uttered words “I can’t imagine what it must be like to be Palestinian in another country right now”:
‘I am not there and I am not here’: a Palestinian American poet on bearing witness to atrocity
by Hala Alyan
What is the role of the diasporic witness? To remain steadfast in what she has seen, what she has understood and learned. To remain undistracted. I write a poem. I write another poem. I cut my hair. I watch a young child’s skin burn from white phosphorus. I spend my time on the L train clicking through headlines. I construct arguments that go nowhere. I give talks about endurance, about reorienting our thinking around care, about building our capacity to keep watching. Then I go to a holiday gathering and spend two hours trying to convince a woman why withholding water in Gaza is a war crime. Eventually, she acknowledges that this is terrible – if that is the case. I decide this scaffolded concession is the best I’ll get, and pretend to take a phone call.
Bearing witness through food:
A Cuisine Under Siege
I couldn’t rescue my aunt in Gaza, but I can keep her recipes alive.
by Laila El-Haddad
Last month, I again found myself in tears chopping onions and chard for sumagiyya, but this time I was making it to honor Um Hani’s memory. Like in 2021, I couldn’t look away from the news: The park where I used to take my son for evening strolls, the beach promenade where I drank sage tea with my mother, the university where I gave guest lectures—they were all unrecognizable piles of overturned dirt and warped wire.
In this short piece, John Randall Smith compares reports on what is being eaten in Gaza, depending on whether you are the occupier or being occupied, though he runs into some issues trying to view Haaretz’s profile of IDF soldiers cooking in Gaza:
The page wouldn’t open. Changing my VPN settings to Israel solved that problem, however, and I read the story in translation by way of Google Translate…
A kind of Saveur or Bon Appétit puff-piece from hell, the article comprises an interview with two soldiers, Nadav and Elam, who began cooking for their unit in the kitchens of abandoned homes.
As artists and writers find themselves being silenced and bamboozled by statements such as the Arts Council England’s statement threatening to withdraw funding for work by artists who produce ‘overtly political or activist’ statements, it’s easy to feel lost or hopeless, but everything is connected and the fight must continue. I enjoyed Tamara Santibanez’s post connecting some of the dots in their piece earlier this year:
But cultural fronts matter, and I am constantly reminded of this. We see this in the darksided social media influencers being bribed to make pro-Israel posts, in college student organizations being infiltrated by informants on Israel’s payroll, and even in tattoo artists being flown to Israel to appear in propaganda videos gushing about how beautiful and friendly the occupying force is and how much they love the hummus. Meanwhile, Palestinian artists have film screenings and retrospectives cancelled, and those like Randa Jarrar who dare challenge the platforming of Zionist violence are dragged out of so-called “free speech” events by their chairs.
Taking direct action through food
Laleh Mohmedi is an artist based in Melbourne Australia, who creates pictorial food art, which started as a project to get her son Jacob to enjoy eating a healthy and varied diet. Jacob’s Food Diaries is a joyful and fun Instagram account that has collaborated with many brands including Disney to sculpt healthy food into enticing dishes. When Laleh started using her talents and food as a medium to highlight the genocide and plight of Palestinians, including representations of dead children, she was harassed and trolled online by an audience who was used to looking the other way. This has not stopped her from using her platform to speak up for Palestine, and for human rights.
Artist and activist Darren Cullen of Spelling Mistakes Cost Lives created these playfully political anti-apartheid barcode labels that can be downloaded and used to remind people they should be boycotting Israeli brands such as Sabra, and Coca-Cola, which are still being stocked across the UK in stores such as Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose. Stores will only continue to stock brands and products that people buy, so there is real power in boycotting.
There are many ways to bear witness and to take action. There are also many ways to look away, brush things off, and think it's too complex to engage with. For those in Edinburgh, Sumud Edinburgh and Take One Action have created an event that combines Palestinian cuisine with a workshop which will share practical strategies to foster space for challenging yet constructive conversations. They also plan to share stories and poetry as part of the event. Although building bridges using cuisine and food as a tool can be complex (and a topic I hope to discuss in more detail soon), the steps of critical reflection and engaging in discourse are being used to motivate others to be explicit, to share the true weight of the genocide we are complicit in, and to take action for change. By learning how to actively listen and critically question — both essential skills for engaging in meaningful discourse — the organisers hope participants will discover the power of storytelling as a tool for navigating difficult conversations.
Taking action can take many forms, and we need as many people as possible continuing to take action in translating experiences, speaking out in person, or by attending protests, signing petitions, contacting their local representatives, making art, making space to read or learn, and passing on all forms of knowledge whilst operating from a place of love.
#CeasefireNow
I have found the following accounts useful in providing resources which collate actions into quick, easy steps we can take:
Many thanks to Apoorva Sripathi for editing this essay.
Cited in Goldstein 2016 p.196.
Goldstein S. 2016. Youth and Food Literacy: A Case Study of Food Education at The Stop Community Food Centre. In Sumner, J. ed., 2016. Learning, food, and sustainability: Sites for resistance and change. Springer.
On this note I found it useful to watch the video “Who is the real George Galloway?” last weekend, if, like me, you were a little puzzled as to his recent election!
“Flowers need watered” is a delightfully Scottish phrase!